Abstract:

“Strengthening the Quality and Relevance of the 3rd mission in Georgian Universities – SQUARE” is capacity building for Higher Education project which has been a new word in Georgian reality. It has changed the approach to the third mission not only in the consortium member universities, but also in Georgian HEI (Higher Education Institution) system as well.

The article deals with the case study of the project development, challenges and perspectives to change the ecosystem and make third mission of the university one of the focal points of institutional operation as well as governmental policy making.

The major aims of the project imply to raise the relevance and the quality of the third mission in Georgian universities while encouraging higher levels of management to participate. The initial proposal set concrete plans for the consortium partners to fulfill till the finalization of the project. It included highlights on providing methodologies and guidelines for HEIs to implement the full cycle of third mission activities, while preparing the package of changes in the current legislation and institutional accreditation standards which would define the third mission as mandatory component for Georgian HEIs at national level.

Consortium of the project consists of 8 Georgian HEIs, Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement of Georgia, and 4 EU partners from Belgium, Portugal, France and Finland. The consortium is coordinated by Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.

The article would describe how Georgian universities dealt with the project outcomes and how their awareness as well as performance has grown throughout the three-year project step-by-step with the support of EU partners and the great desire to become more mature on this journey: inventory report and mapping of 3M (third mission) activities and assets in all consortium member Georgian universities have been designed covering the whole ecosystem of the institution including media-centers, FabLabs, scientific-research institutes working on the studies on the comprehensive scale of fields and etc.

In the article authors would describe the impact the project has made on the surrounding society despite the Covid19 pandemic effects: changes in Georgian institutional accreditation standards are forecasted; the awareness of the local municipalities on collaboration possibilities with Academia has been raised which would lead to successful cooperations and impactful 3M activities.

Keywords:

Third Mission, Capacity Building in Higher Education, Erasmus +, Quality, Social Engagement, Knowledge transfer.